Month: July 2012

Why are none of the major international animal advocacy
organizations currently campaigning against bullfighting?
This should be priority #1. Bullfighting is nothing more
than a traditional spectacle of sadism. It keeps the floor of animal
welfare at a low level. For example, how can one criticize brutal
treatment of animals in slaughterhouses when bulls are allowed to be
tortured to death in public? There is no place on earth where people
have not seen pictures of bleeding bulls and “brave” matadors and
cheering crowds, and such representations have a desensitizing
effect on children everywhere. Bullfighters have tried to stage
bullfights in such places as China, where there is no tradition of
it, trying to whet the appetite for sadistic spectacles.

DELHI, CHENNAI–Collecting current data about disease
incidence in India since 2003, the Indian Central Bureau of Health
Intelligence has known for nearly 10 years that the oft-claimed
Indian human rabies death toll of 20,000 per year is high by a factor
of nearly 100.
Often cited by politicians and media, the 20,000 figure has
repeatedly inflamed rabies panics, including street dog massacres
and mob attacks on humane societies that participate in the federally
sponsored Animal Birth Control program. Funded by the Animal Welfare
Board of India since2003, the ABC program seeks to replace lethal
dog population control with sterilization.

Sonja Van Tichelen, a 20-year representative of Eurogroup for Animals, based in Brussels, on June 6, 2012 announced that she has “accepted the post of European Union director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, starting on September 1.”

Joining Eurogroup as a campaign coordinator in 1992, Van Tichelen was promoted to deputy director in 1997. She became director in 2004. Wrote Van Tichelen in the April 2012 edition of the Eurogroup newsletter, “The EU published last February its new strategy to promote animal welfare. After a full year of evaluating the outcome of the EU animal welfare policy, the Commission has disappointed the animal welfare movement with an ‘ultra-light’ strategy, welcomed enthusiastically by the Farmers Union but far removed from what EU citizens expect. It is disappointing,” Van Tichelen wrote, “that the focus of the strategy is on farm animal welfare, with the protection of wild animals and the high-profile issue of animal testing completely out of the picture. Although the [European] Parliament and the member states have asked for EU initiatives on cats and dogs, we will have to wait until 2014 for a study of the welfare of dogs and cats involved in commercial practices. In essence,” Van Tichelen finished, “this means that no new legislation is foreseen to improve animal welfare. This despite the fact that several categories of animals–cattle, fish, dogs and cats, sheep and goats–are left with no legal protection.” Read more

PROVIDENCE–Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee on June 15, 2012 endorsed into law a bill that allows the director of the state Department of Environmental Management to designate a department veterinarian or a representative of the Rhode Island SPCA to act as an advocate for the animal victims in abuse and neglect cases. The advocate would be assigned to make recommendations on behalf of animal victims to any court in Rhode Island before which the custody or well-being of an animal is at issue. Introduced by state senator John J. Tassoni Jr. and state representative Peter John Petrarca, the new Rhode Island law is believed to be among the first of its kind in the world. Swiss voters in March 2007 rejected by a margin of more than 2-to-1 a ballot question seeking to establish a similar system. Governor Chafee on June 21 signed into law a bill banning the use of veal crates and restricting the use of gestation stalls for pigs. Nine other states have similar legislation.

TAIJI, Japan–Notorious for killing as many as 2,000 dolphins and small whales per winter, the coastal Japanese city of Taiji plans to make Moriura Bay, where the 2009 Oscar-winning documentary The Cove was clandestinely filmed, “a huge pool where people can swim and kayak among small whales and dolphins,” the Daily Yomiuri disclosed on May 1, 2012. Read more

Vier Pfoten sees a new era for animals in Ukraine; locals are doubtful

KIEV–Spain took home the Euro 2012 football championship trophy, but the biggest winners, hopes Helmut Dungler, chief executive of the Austrian-based animal charity Vier Pfoten, are more than 4,000 street dogs in Kiev, Lviv, Donetsk, and Zaporozhye whom Vier Pfoten has sterilized, vaccinated, and treated for any evident illnesses or injuries, with the help of local organizations and volunteers. “Both our stray dog neutering program and our bear rescue project,” which recovered four bears from illegal private possession, “will continue,” Dungler pledged. Read more

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